Scribbling and Doodling

Is This What's Been Missing?
scribble mission This evening, I followed my own instruction and I scribbled down everything I knew about Sick Day. I did so in the sloppiest, most freeform manner I could muster. I put Fletch Lives on Netflix streaming, which chased away my intellect completely, and I doodled down the movie.

Until that moment, I'd honestly forgotten about all the scribbling and doodling I've done on my past screenplays. But tonight, in pieces, I remembered sitting in the LA courthouse hallway, waiting through at jury duty, drawing circles around ideas for Zaniness Ensues.

I remembered sitting in backseat of my car, in the rain, on break from my all-night hospital job, scribbling as quickly as I could in cursive, until I sorted out Blaring Static.

I remembered laying on my stomach on the carpet, drawing lines all over dozens of notebook pages, until I cracked the third act of Storybook Park, which became Gravedigger's Son.

I remembered the rush I felt each of those times, when the answers started appearing as though from a muse hidden in the wall, and I remembered, these things have never come easy, but when they finally come, they come flooding out in freeform.

But What About Sick Day?
In less than twenty minutes, I realized I'd already thought thru several things I'd forgotten to write down. Ideas from morning showers, from walking the dog, from waiting in line for lunch. Ideas that I hadn't realized were ideas when I had them. And quite miraculously, I was able to recall them tonight, punch-lines and all. With only momentary pauses, they sputtered and then poured out.

Then, I hit a wall. But at least, now, I could SEE the wall I was up against.

What I needed was some sort of third act direction. Without it, I'd be aimlessly grouping and sequencing gags with no purpose. I couldn't make any hard choices without that third act, because I couldn't tell what the story needed.

It was time to start working backward from the ending. And to do that, I needed to start fresh, from the beginning.

So, I took a bath.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pizza and Beer

The Misplaced Planet DVD has gone off to be professionally duplicated. It has six of our short-films on it, along with behind-the-scenes documentaries and commentaries. This fist disc will represent the best of the stuff we've done in the last two years, and I really can't wait to see it. You can check out some samples at the forum. If you haven't already, you should be Misplaced Planet's friend on Myspace . Because that's me. Now, we need to polish off Disc 2 of the set, which will be a bonus for the real fans, and for ourselves. Hopefully, we'll be able to sell enough of these to partially fund the filming of Zaniness Ensues . Anything that reduces the amount of credit-spending is good. As for me, I haven't been getting a lot of writing done, since the design work for the DVD has consumed my time. But I have made a lot of progress on the Zaniness Ensues production. We have Jess Temple ready to play the lead female role of Meredith, and Matt McN...
Read more

Semi-Annual Exorcism

I hate to give the impression that I spend my days sulking, but this ridiculous journal has become the place for me when I have some woe to spew. So many of my complaints about life are summarized by that: I have no one to share my troubles with, and that is the whole of my troubles. However, writing has always been soothing to me, and every writer scribbles in hope that it will someday be read by the right person. Another potential companion (the one I mentioned earlier) jumped ship on me this past weekend. I must have done something wrong during the conversation, failed to amuse, because she begged off the call by saying she was going "away." And that was the last I heard of her, despite e-mails and contact attempts. Immediately following that, my closest female friend expressed long-hidden romantic intentions for me, intentions I did not share. If I do not draw a line, I will be stringing her along. I must separate, cause myself pain, in order to avoid her contin...
Read more

Let Me Put This to You Simple...

I want to know where you get those friends that people have in romantic comedies. You know, the single-lead's happy-couple-friends, the ones that see their romantic happiness, paired with their sense of friendship, as an imperative to set the single up with someone special. You know, the couple that quietly gets ready for bed, actually thinking about the loneliness of their good friend. I am about to throw a fit. Hold on tight!
Read more